Studies on the simultaneous removal of dissolved DBP and TBP as well as uranyl ions from aqueous solutions by using Micellar-Enhanced Ultrafiltration Technique

Studies were carried out for the simultaneous removal of dissolved organic namely di-butyl phosphate (DBP) and tri-butyl phosphate (TBP) as well as uranyl ions from aqueous solutions by using Micellar-Enhanced Ultrafiltration Technique (MEUF). Ultrafiltration (UF), a comparatively low pressure driven membrane separation technique, offers great potential for the separation/recovery/removal of dissolved organic and metal contaminants at low concentration and from large volume of aqueous waste solutions. Throughout the study Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate (SDS), an anionic surfactant was used. The 47 mm diameter Millipore ultrafiltration membranes of 3000, 5000 and 10,000 MWCO pore sizes were used and the pressure of the ultrafiltration cell was kept at 1.7 bar for all the experiments. To optimise the parameters, the effects of membrane pore size, DBP concentration in feed and feed acidity on the recovery/separation of DBP were studied. More than 90% removal of DBP from aqueous solution was achieved while keeping the feed acidity at 0.5 M HNO3, the DBP concentration in feed solution was kept at 720 ppm and by using 3000 MWCO pore size membrane. The interferences from other dissolved organic such as TBP and metal ions like uranium were also studied. The results showed that the technique can be effectively employed for the simultaneous removal of dissolved organic (DBP and TBP) and metal ions (uranium) from the aqueous effluent streams.